Di Venanzo, Gianni

(1920-1966)

   Cinematographer. One of the most respected cinematographers of the postwar period, Di Venanzo served an early apprenticeship as camera assistant to Aldo Tonti on Luchino Visconti's landmark film, Ossessione (Obsession, 1943), and in the immediate postwar period was assistant to Otello Martelli and G. R. Aldo on many of the classic neorealist films, including Roberto Rossellini's Paisa (Paisan, 1946) and Visconti's La terra trema (The Earth Trembles, 1948). He graduated to director of photography on Carlo Lizzani's Achtung! Banditi! (Attention! Bandits! 1951) and thereafter worked on over 40 films with most of the leading Italian directors including Luigi Comencini, Lina WertmiiHer, Federico Fellini, and Mario Monicelli, for whom he photographed the famous I soliti ignoti (Big Deal on Madonna Street, 1958). He developed an especially strong partnership with Michelangelo Antonioni, with whom he worked on all the latter's early black-and-white films, with the exception of L'avventura (The Adventure, 1960), and with Francesco Rosi, for whom he photographed all the films up to and including Le mani sulla citta (Hands over the City, 1963), earning the Nastro d'argento for I magliari (The Magliari, 1959) and again for Salvatore Giuliano (1961).

   A particularly innovative and creative cinematographer, Di Venanzo experimented with lighting and new techniques to develop a highly distinctive personal style that was nevertheless flexible enough to serve both the austerity of Antonioni's La notte (The Night, 1961) and the sumptuousness of Fellini's Otto e mezzo (8V2, 1963). Following his premature death from cancer in 1966, he was awarded a posthumous Nastro d'argento for his color photography on Fellini's Giulietta degli spiriti (Juliet of the Spirits, 1965).